It was very odd that she’d violated pack law and not reported her presence in his territory. She had been working at the marketing firm for the past year, and in conversations with him, she’d mentioned growing up in the area. So she had to be aware of the existence of the Bronson Pack.
She must belong to a smaller pack, one he hadn’t heard of. Still, that was no excuse. All the packs in the region were required to send a list of their eligible females to the dominant pack, so the Alphas could choose a mate from among them. When he found out what pack she belonged to, they were in serious trouble.
Or maybe she was a lone wolf? That didn’t make any sense either. She certainly wouldn’t be working for a firm owned by werewolves if she was trying to stay off the radar. Lone wolves were hunted down and killed because they posed too much risk of exposing the existence of werewolves, and a lot of lone wolves were mentally unstable. If a wolf wasn’t a member of a pack, there was generally a reason.
The heck with waiting for Truman to come up with something. It wasn’t like he could concentrate on anything else now he knew she was a werewolf – knew she could be his. He opened up a web browser and searched for her name. She had a Facebook account – unusual for most werewolves. He and his brothers were prominent public figures because of the company they owned, but if it ‘hadn’t been for that, they’d have stayed out of the spotlight entirely. Most werewolves tried to keep a low profile.
Further searching showed that she’d grown up in the suburbs of Bismarck.. She’d gone to a regular human high school – he found a few mentions of academic awards in the local press. He found mentions of her parents. Her father had died in a shootout with police after robbing a convenience store. Her mother had died a few years ago from cirrhosis of the liver. An alcoholic, maybe? She’d only been in her fifties. Huh. So she had something in common with him.
The fact that their obits were online was also odd. Nobody recorded the births and deaths of most werewolves.
He tried to think which of the smaller packs she might have belonged to. Not the Fillmoore Pack, not the Red Clay Pack…he stopped by and visited them on a regular basis and he’d met every eligible female in those packs. They would never have defied the law by hiding a woman from him. Hell, the females from those packs practically swarmed him every time he showed up.
So if they didn’t have access to a protected pack property, what had they done every month when it was time for the Change? What had they done in the week leading up to the Change, when they were getting hairy and aggressive, and craving red meat? Taylor, her family and her circumstances were a maddeningly frustrating mystery.
His train of thought was interrupted by the sounds of shouting and swearing outside on the front lawn.
Richard poked his head in the door. “Cliff, you’d better get out here before someone starts bleeding,” he said.
Chapter Four
Cliff hurried outside with a growl of frustration. He ran down the marble front steps, past enormous clay urns dripping with flowers, and onto the front lawn.
Sure enough, his uncle Jerrold was there, with one of his pack members, a big, stupid brute named Junior.
Junior was being restrained by several of Cliff’s pack members, including Truman. A teenager named Alvin, and Alvin’s mother Betty, were cowering behind Cliff’s brother Austin, who was facing Jerrold and Junior with a look of disdain curling his lip.
“You can run but you can’t hide, you little bitch!” Junior screamed at Alvin. “I’m gonna kill you, an’ eat your guts for dinner, and take your girlfrien’ an’—” He stopped screaming and struggling when he saw Cliff, and stared at the ground in sullen silence.
Junior’s father had died a few years earlier in a pointless death challenge. Junior seemed to be eager to follow in his father’s footsteps – no doubt with Jerrold’s encouragement. To Jerrold, bullying equaled bravery.
Not for the first time, Cliff cursed the day Jerrold had been born. He was just as useless as Lloyd had been.
Weeks earlier, Lloyd had finally succumbed to kidney disease after decades of abusing himself with drugs and alcohol. It had been assumed that Cliff would officially become pack Alpha.
Cliff had been the acting Alpha of the Bronson pack for the least three years, successfully running the business and maintaining the profits they needed to pay property taxes on tens of thousands of acres of forestland. Grant was in charge of the marketing department, and acted as the company’s public face.
But then Jerrold, Lloyd’s brother and leader of a small, failing pack, had showed up at the funeral and announced that he was the new Alpha. Cliff had barreled towards him, ready for a fight to the death. Unfortunately, the Pack Elders had intervened.
Jerrold had a legitimate claim. He had the Dominus genes required of an Alpha, providing superior physical strength. He was a blood relative. And of course idiot Lloyd had been too brain-pickled to think of leaving a will establishing a clear path of succession.
Then Grant had stepped forward and announced that, no,hewould be the new Alpha.
Since there were now multiple contenders for the spot of Alpha, all with the Dominus gene and a legitimate claim to the position, the pack charter required that every contender compete in the Alpha Trials. They’d start in a few days; pack members were finishing up the obstacle courses that were an important part of the trials.
In the meantime, Jerrold had the right to stay on the property with his pack members. He and his surly group of thugs had moved into a guest house and had been causing trouble ever since.
Betty rushed over to Cliff, tears streaming down her face. She started to grab his arm, then realized what she was doing and took a step back, dropping her gaze respectfully. “Alpha. Junior challenged my son. He’ll kill him. Please don’t let him kill my boy!” she cried.
Cliff looked over the scene. The Elders were hurrying up now – Herbert, Maurice and Juliette, who favored Cliff, and Sylvester, Minnie, and Phineas, who favored Jerrold. Oswald, the oldest of them, who was neutral, was huffing and puffing as he ran across the lawn behind them.
“What’s going on?” Cliff demanded of Alvin.
“He told my girlfriend to suck his…you know,” Alvin protested. “So I hit him. Then I ran away.” He looked down at the ground in shame at that last part. His face was pale with fright. Alvin was physically weak, but he came from a family with magical talent. They were earth witches who helped grow the pack’s crops.
Cliff stalked over to Junior, and Truman and the other pack members let go of him. Junior let out a low, angry whine and inclined his head to the side.
“Did you really say that?” Cliff demanded. “To a female frommy pack?” He was disgusted to see that Jerrold was looking at Junior with pride.
